Integrating Public Relations & Content Marketing – It Doesn't Have to be Scary

	Integrating Public Relations & Content Marketing – It Doesn't Have to be Scary At this year’s PRSA International conference in Philadelphia, a few thousand PR professionals from all over the world gathered for the latest trends and insights into the future of PR and communications. For my part, I presented on the growing role of Content Marketing for Public Relations to a packed room of attentive and inquisitive PR and communications pros. On top of the networking, awards and education, there was plenty of connecting with old friends. I was happy to see Shonali Burke (who is handling book PR for Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s new book, Age of Context) as soon as I walked into the venue hotel. Shortly after we connected with Richard Bagnall (founder of Metrica, acquired by Gorkana) who came over from London. The night before his opening keynote, Brian Solis had the bright idea to take a few Uber SUVs with our pals Deirdre Breakenridge, Eric Schwartzman, Michael Pranikoff and few more friends over to Jim’s Steaks for Philly Cheesesteaks. The experience was fun, but it was just one of those things you probably only need to do once. All that fun aside, there’s some serious business going on in the Public Relations world that has driven a lot of attention towards digital PR expertise, content marketing, native advertising and defining the future role of PR. The PR industry has been in a state of flux over the past few years as major changes have occurred in the the news and media. One striking example is this: Over 17,000 newsroom jobs have been lost since 2007. If you’re a journalist, it doesn’t need to be Halloween for a stat like that to be scary. If you’re in media relations, it’s scary too, because with fewer journalists, competition for stories skyrockets. On top of that, declining readership of traditional media, exploding use of social and mobile technologies, shortened news cycles and an explosion in brand publishing make today’s media environment very different. And by “different”, I mean zombie-like scary for some. “If you want to be in the media, become the media’ Brands are evolving as publishers, hiring brand journalists and investing heavily in content. In fact, according to a recent CMI and MarketingProfs study, 58% of B2B and 60% of B2C companies planning on spending more on content in 2014. This is up a few percentage points over last year and the overall trend towards content marking is decidedly on the up. Over 5 years ago, we decided that investing in our own content would help us create enough of an audience for our services that we wouldn’t need to rely on local or industry media. There are several ironies to how this has played out. 1. By developing our blog to be a rich information source over a long period of time, we’ve attracted far more unsolicited media coverage (NY Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal) than when we had someone doing media outreach. 2. We still don’t get covered by the local media in Minnesota. But we also have reach that is on par or exceeds many of the business magazines. To reach 10 – 50,000 business people today, all I have to do is publish a blog post. And I can publish as many blog posts as I want without paying anyone for advertising or having to interrupt a reporter with some kind of pitch they’ll never care about anyway. The lesson? To ensure your place as a trusted source for stories in the media, create content that demonstrates that expertise. Creating a themed, rich resource that is easily findable and shareable, will attract customers directly as well as journalists and bloggers doing research on a topic relevant to your business. “Publishers are Marketers” Publishers are increasingly offering marketing and content creation services as well as content as advertising, aka “native advertising, sponsored content or advertorial”.  One of the best examples of this is Forbes Brand Voice, and recently The Associated Press started taking money for promoting content. Journalists are also becoming more accountable to driving traffic to their stories. A few years ago, the only pitches I would receive were from junior media relations specialists. Today, I’ll occasionally see pitches from newspaper, magazine or online publisher writers suggesting I share their most recent story. “We are the Internet” Along with changes with the media, brands and content are the major trends in ubiquitous internet connectivity (10 billion connected devices now) and the ability for consumers to create, consume, publish, interact and transact anytime and anywhere with smartphones, tablets or computers. The public is connected 24/7 and that creates all new means of interaction for brands that may have been used to transactions and customer service as their primary reasons for communicating with the public. Since so many consumers are empowered to publish, companies have too look at the competition a little differently. Whether it’s the “shelf space” of search results or share of conversation on the social web, brands are not only competing against other companies, but their own customers and peers for topical attention of common interests. Optimize for Customers, Optimize for the Media In the same way marketers segment customer data to create profiles that reflect key data about information discovery, consumption and what motivates action, so too can PR professionals approach content creation and optimization for journalists, analysts and reporters doing research. Time on social media and search engines means being where the target audience is looking, whether it’s buyers looking for solutions or a journalist looking for statistics or a story source. How can you be where journalists are looking? By creating and optimizing content that’s useful on “in demand” and relevant topics. Besides findability, companies are investing in more utility for the media as well. Granted, some smart companies have been doing this a long time: creating well researched information sources on topics a particular reporter or journalist covers. A good example is the media resource, Google Media Tools that offers members of the media a number of utilities to: Gather and Organize, Engage, Visualize, Publish, Develop and other resources. A big part of optimizing performance is to be useful and make it easier for your target audience to do what you want them to do. What else are PR pros doing to converge with social media and content marketing? Added to the regular duties of creating messaging, communications strategy, media and blogger outreach, reputation monitoring, crisis management, employee and customer communications are some specific social media activities: Social Listening Social Content Creation Social Engagement Social Ads Grow Networks on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest and forums as necessary. As the relationship between information and influence evolves, so too must the definition of content marketing. "Content Marketing is the planning, creation, and amplification of brand and customer focused narratives that drive measurable business outcomes." When you look at the idea of storytelling targeted to a specific audience intended to affect certain intended outcomes, it sounds a like influencing publics to me. When you combine that ability to incorporate key messaging into content stories with marketing level accountability – it’s a clear competitive advantage over PR or standard content marketing by itself. Of course there’s a diverse array of skills involved with content marketing that go way beyond the purview of most PR professionals. But the messaging, ability to influence and target groups is spot on. Both Marketing and Public Relations are in the content business. Our agency started pretty much as a PR firm and we were creating all kinds of content for clients back then. Now, we have years of experience integrating PR, marketing, advertising along with SEO, social media and content marketing. Some of the content types you’ll find PR pros creating include: Newsroom Blog Posts Press Releases Case Studies Social Content Newsletters Contributed Articles White Papers Events Video, Image, Audio Personally, I think Public Relations pros that are skilled in messaging, content planning, social media and promotion have an excellent base to become better content marketers than many of the people now calling themselves “content marketing experts”.  The main area of opportunity is in measurement, because marketers are accountable to performance and business outcomes in ways that most people in the PR world aren’t. If you’re in the Public Relations world, how has your company started to integrate more content marketing into your services? Are clients asking for more content? Are they expecting more marketing oriented performance from your PR and media relations efforts? For a great #prsaicon recap, check out the post on CommPro.biz here. Image: Shutterstock Online Marketing News: Psychology Behind Viral Content, Artsy iPhone App, YouTube Charging, Instagram Ads, Foursquare Analytics What Makes Content Go Viral? The book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, by Malcolm Gladwell has some pretty fantastic research on how content goes viral. See what compels people to click and share content. Content consumption is relatively static compared to content generation, so there is only so much attention to go around. [Infographic] Leaderswest Easier Recovery for Hacked Sites – Google adds new features to Webmaster Tools “Security Issues” to enable faster recovery if you’re hacked. Google Blog Artsy Launches Innovative iPhone App for Art Lovers – Artsy have announced the launch of the Artsy App for iPhone and iPod touch that will give users access to more than 50,000 images from more than 600 of the world's leading galleries art fairs, museums, private collections, foundations, and artists' estates in 50 countries. Art Market Blog Vine Adds Ability to Edit Videos, Save Sessions – With a new feature called “Time Travel,” users can now reorganize the various shots included in their videos. That means if a user wants to put the last clip he shot at the start of his video, he can simply drag it to the front before sharing. Los Angeles Times Get Ready to Pay to Watch YouTube – YouTube is increasing its efforts to generate more revenue with its most popular video producers. Any video creator who has 10,000 subscribers and has been verified by YouTube will be able to set up a new paid channel and charge a fee for access to their content. Creators can set their own subscription rates, though YouTube has final authority to determine pricing. Time Buffer's Response to Hacking: A Study in Social Media Crisis Management – Social sharing start-up Buffer was hacked October 26th. In the hours their service was down, the Buffer team managed the crisis across social media and email channels like champs. Read about lessons learned in social media crisis management for brands. Search Engine Watch LinkedIn Tops 250 Million Members – LinkedIn’s stock has more than doubled in the year to date, closing a few dollars shy of $250 per share. As of publication, the stock was up by nearly 2%. Mashable Ads Set To Appear on Instagram Next Week – Starting with a very small, select group of advertisers (Adidas, Ben & Jerry's, GE and a few more) Instagram will begin introducing high-quality brand-oriented ads into the news feed, these will include still imagery and video. Marketing Land 25%+ Young Internet Users Commenting On & Discovering TV Shows Via Social Media – 3 in 10 broadband internet users aged 15-17 say they occasionally post comments to social media sites about the TV shows they watch, a figure which remains relatively high (25%) among 18-34-year-olds, but drops to just 10% of respondents aged 35 and older, according to survey result from Horowitz Associates. Marketing Charts 5 Google AdWords Enhanced Campaign Tips – Early adopters may have had the first jump on Enhanced Campaigns, but it's definitely not too late to take advantage. Read these five tips to help maximize performance and improve efficiency in your Google AdWords campaigns. Search Engine Watch Foursquare Adds Analytics Tools For Publishers – Foursquare last week rolled out new tools for publishers that give them more insight on places popular with their followers and which of their tips on the social location app are resonating. MediaPost 15 Ways Ecommerce Sites Can Use Urgency to Increase Conversions – Through showing low stock levels, encouraging people to buy quickly for faster delivery, or by using email to pull customers into sales, urgency is a great selling tool. Check out more tips here. eConsultancy 4 Social Media Horror Stories and How to Avoid Them – Let these serve as a warning: What you say online can–and will–come back to hurt you. Inc. An Easy Way to Upgrade to Google Universal Analytics – Google launches Universal Analytics upgrade, making it an easy two-step process to upgrade your existing properties from classic Google Analytics to Universal Analytics. Google Analytics Blog LinkedIn Announces LinkedIntro App – The growth of mobile email is simply staggering. Four years ago, less than 4% of emails were read on mobile. Today, half of all emails are read on a mobile device. Enter 'Intro' which shows you LinkedIn profiles in your iPhone Mail app.  Very cool! LinkedIn Blog Google’s Matt Cutts: More Pages Does Not Equal Higher Rankings – In a new video by Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, we learn that the number of pages on a specific site does not have a direct ranking benefit; the more pages you have, the more chances you have to rank for different keywords. However, the more pages you have, the more likely you have more overall links and PageRank, which do directly impact your rankings. Did ya get all that? Search Engine Land First Evidence of Google Smartphone Ranking Penalty Appears – If you are using smartphone error pages, this is your incentive to stop. It's no longer just a worst practice and bad for your user. It will now make you less visible in Google search results. Marketing Land Wrong Ways to Use Hashtags – Many people don't seem to understand how #hashtags work, and they misuse the tool, which is a fast way to suffer a backlash, sometimes without even knowing it having happened. Here are a few common ways people abuse the hashtag system, and what you should do instead. SEO Chat From the Online Community This post promoting a free 214-page eBook from Lindex generated lengthy comments and great ideas from the community. On "31 Top Marketers Agree: It's Time to Rethink Your Content Marketing" Stephen Bateman said, Thanks for this Lee. My tip for content marketers is to start with the end in mind. Turn the process of content creation on its head, and decide first what you want your content users to do. Then, work through a systematic tried, tested and trusted content marketing planning methodology that gets results, not dissimilar to Rick’s http://slidesha.re/17eqJiJ Rick Noel said, Excellent post Lee. My tips would be to follow a process which begins with building customer personas that could be used as a light house to guide your content marketing efforts. This is in support of your 2nd bullet above from your Chapter 1 recommendations. Second, document FAQs for those personas. This is what they care about and is related to their business goals. Third, find the gaps to addressing those questions in the existing Google index. Fourth, evaluate keywords used by target market to find the useful information you are contemplating creating. Pick keywords carefully and then be aware as you write, making sure to write naturally and don’t be overly focused on keyword density, just aware and all things being equal, the best words to use in each situation. Keyword research should guide your approach to fill those voids that are in demand and possible to rank based on current page 1. Factor in geographic scope (local, regional, national, international) and personalization when determining ability for organic rankings. Fifth, and perhaps most important, be prepared to create unique content that is better than everything else or takes a creative slant on the topic covered. Six, share strategically on social channels most relevant to your personas/target markets, ideally at times when they are likely to be using these social channels. This is key for reach and discovery. Sound like a tall order? To do it well for competitive markets, it is, especially as you are building audience and authority. We consider this process in driving ROI from Content Marketing, especially as it relates to search. Thanks for sharing. On “Gamification as a Content Marketing Tactic: How Brands are Engaging Consumers,” Brad Szollose said, In my own Cross-Generational work, I recommend Gamification to managers and executives. It is an excellent way to build in micro-incentives in order to achieve goals, helps to build a team environment and sets the tone for recognition & reward. Many Fortune 500 companies are using Gamification driven software over their intranets in order to keep project management transparent and on task. 3 Books I recommend are: 1) Got Game: How a New Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade 2) What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by Professor James Paul Gee 3) And of course my own work, Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia. We are entering a disruptive time in business and Gamification seems to be an incredible game changer for HR, and a great tool for employee evaluation. In Marketing, it’s a no-brainer. Thanks again Nicolette. What’s Your Take? Do you use negative or positive emotional language to tip the scales in social media? Will you pay to watch YouTube videos? Will ads on Instagram kill this popular app?